One of the features that Slack offers is the messages sent when joining and leaving channels. By default, the welcome and leaving messages are automatically sent whenever someone joins or leaves a channel.
Channel joining messages are designed to help break the ice and have new joiners either post a greeting themselves, or be welcomed by current channel members rather than silently joining and lurking. It encourages a casual chat, and can help make a new joiner less nervous about talking to the others. Channel leaving messages are intended to be informational, so continuing members of the channel can be aware that someone has left.
By default, joining and leaving messages are posted for every user that joins or leaves every channel. This can be helpful for small channels but in larger channels, especially those with a large turnover of users the messages can either get lost or just be annoying. Thankfully, Slack offers the ability to at least partially disable the messages.
To configure the workspace to not send channel joining and leaving messages, you need to browse to the workspace settings and permissions page. To get there, you first need to click on the workspace name in the top-right corner. Next, in the dropdown menu, select “Settings & administration”, then “Workspace settings” to open the workspace settings in a new tab.
In the default “Settings” tab, click on the “Expand” button for the “Join and leave messages in channel” settings.
Once in the join and leave message section, untick the checkbox labelled “Show a message when people join or leave channels”. With this setting disabled, join and leave messages will only be posted when someone joins or leaves a private channel or when someone joins a public channel with fewer than twenty members.
Join and leave messages can be a helpful way to welcome and recognise those users joining and leaving a Slack channel. If you follow the steps in this guide, you can disable these messages for most scenarios.
